THEATRE REVIEWS

49. The Romance of the Shopwalker (1896)

The Romance of the Shopwalker
by Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe (Harriett Jay).
London: Vaudeville Theatre. 26 February to 28 March, 1896. Followed by provincial tour.

David Christie Murray (the elder brother of Henry Murray) accused Buchanan of plagiarising his novel, The Way of the World, and there was some correspondence on the matter in The Era. The original inspiration for both Murray’s novel and Buchanan and Jay’s play was Samuel Warren’s novel, Ten Thousand a-Year.

 The Stage (6 February, 1896 - p.11)

     When I announced that either The Shop Walker or Good Old Times, both by Robert Buchanan, would be the next production at the Vaudeville, the dramatist, with Charles Reade-like vigour, laboured me with abuse – in another paper. Now, however, it appears that The Shopwalker, re-christened The Romance of a Shopwalker, is to be produced on or about Thursday, the 20th inst. The piece is described as a three-act comedy-drama, and the Shopwalker with a romance will be played by Mr. Weedon Grossmith. Others in the cast are: Messrs. Sydney Warden, David James, who is entrusted with a Scotch part (in which he should make a hit), Misses Annie Hill, Nina Boucicault, Talbot, M. A. Victor, and Mrs. Weedon Grossmith (Miss May Palfrey), who will make her welcome reappearance as the heroine.

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     The Romance of a Shopwalker has been written by Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe,” the latter nom de guerre standing, I think, for clever Miss Harriett Jay.

[advert for The Romance of the Shopwalker from The Times (24 February, 1896)]

The Times (27 February, 1896 - p.10)

VAUDEVILLE THEATRE.

     The story of a sudden accession of wealth has been employed in many forms by novelists and dramatists of many calibres, from the author of Money downwards, and Mr. Robert Buchanan and his collaborator “Charles Marlowe” (who, when these authors were called last night, proved to be Miss Harriett Jay) have not done amiss in returning to it in The Shopwalker. The time has certainly come when the once familiar story may be told again. It is to be regretted that the authors of The Shopwalker should not have told it better; but there is in this piece, nevertheless, a considerable proportion of the elements that appeal to popular taste. The personage selected for the subject of the experiment of a sudden elevation to wealth is a draper’s assistant, one Thomas Tomkins, who provides Mr. Weedon Grossmith with excellent material for a character sketch, somewhat overdrawn of course, but only the more amusing for that. Tomkins inherits £20,000 a year. In his shop he has ventured, un ver de terre amoureux d’une étoile, to fall in love with a young lady of title who occasionally does business with his firm. This is no other than Lady Evelyn, daughter of the Earl of Doverdale—a part played with the necessary distinction by Miss May Palfrey. For the time being Tomkins’s passion is hopeless, but the death of a wealthy uncle, who leaves him all his property, places him theoretically on a level with the highest in the land. Unfortunately, with all his wealth Tomkins remains a cad of the purest (if not the dirtiest) water, and his suit obtains only the most superficial success. The Lady Evelyn’s affections are placed elsewhere. So, for the matter of that, are Tomkins’s; for in the end the little draper wisely renounces his claims to the hand of the aristocrat and returns to a humble sweetheart with whom he had “kept company” in his shopwalking days. But this is not accomplished until he has had the mortification of being defeated as a candidate for the Parliamentary representation of a local borough. The rough humours of the election fill out the third and last act, but they are not of an exhilarating nature, and they rather accentuate the tendency of the story to drag. It is a pity that the character of the enriched shopwalker should not per se be more interesting than it is; for Mr. Weedon Grossmith elaborates it with infinite care. The authors, however, feel the necessity of developing the sympathetic side of Tomkins’s nature; and accordingly, after renouncing Lady Evelyn’s hand, the little draper makes her a present of her ancestral property which has become his under a mortgage. Miss May Palfrey, Mr. Sydney Warde, Mr. Sydney Brough, and Miss Nina Boucicault sustain with spirit and distinction the aristocratic personnel of the piece; and a strikingly correct study of a Scotch character is given by Mr. David James, as the exalted draper’s man of business, Sandy M’Collop. Miss Annie Hill plays the humble sweetheart with becoming naiveté. The reception of the piece was favourable.

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The Guardian (27 February, 1896 - p.5)

     Mr. Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlow”—who now stands revealed in the person of Miss Harriet Jay—have written for Mr. Weedon Grossmith an old-fashioned but pleasant and entertaining comedy, produced at the Vaudeville this evening under the title of “The Romance of the Shop-Walker.” It may be briefly described as Samuel Warren’s “Ten Thousand a Year” with a sympathetic instead of an unsympathetic Tittlebat Titmouse. Mr. Weedon Grossmith plays the millionaire shopwalker with a great deal of humour and, at the close, not without a touch of pathos. Miss May Palfrey is pleasant as the haughty damsel who is on the point of marrying him because his villanous  has led her to believe that if she does not he will ruin her impecunious father, and Mr. David James is excellent as the said villanous henchman. Other parts are played by Mr. Sydney Brough, Miss Nina Boucicault, Miss Annie Hill, and Miss M. A. Victor. The play was much applauded, and the call for the authors was unanimous.

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The Daily News (27 February, 1896 - Issue 15574)

DRAMA.
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VAUDEVILLE THEATRE.

     To give only the outline of the plot of “The Romance of a Shopwalker” would be to bring to the mind of the playgoer many familiar scenes. But it is not so much the story as the manner in which it is told that makes the story as the manner in which it is told that makes the fortunes of a piece. In the latest work of Messrs. Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe” we meet many old friends. There is, to begin with, the young man of humble origin, who has come in for a fortune, and means to make an aristocratic marriage. He is received into the house of a nobleman, who has nothing left to boast of but his family pride. Then there is the haughty earl’s daughter, who rejects the suitor of her choice in order to relieve her father of his financial embarrassments by marrying the uncouth young man, who has secured a mortgage upon her father’s estate. It is in the incidental humours of the piece that the authors have imparted a certain freshness to this romantic story, though the intrigue is conducted in the old-fashioned style, scenes of broad farce alternating with passages of sentiment. The central figure of the play is Thomas Tomkins, a young man who appears to have been born before the era of the School Board. Tomkins is a shopwalker, with a soul above drapery, and a mother in whom the spirit of Mrs. Brown—a type of character of a bygone generation—is revived. Tomkins has fallen desperately in love with the Lady Evelyn Munro, and her appearance in his employer’s shop gives Mr. Weedon Grossmith, who has the chief part, the opportunity for the comic expression of his devotion. His servile adoration of the young lady, his amorous glances, his efforts to suppress his emotion, all this is extremely funny; and Mr. Grossmith is better served by the authors than any other member of the company. With the news that the shopwalker has inherited an enormous fortune the first act closes, and in the second Tomkins, who has invested as much of his wealth as possible upon his personal appearance, is a guest in the Earl of Doverdale’s house, where he is the only person who seems to be at ease. Tomkins is now going into Parliament, and has adopted the Conservative opinions of his host. He leaves that business, however, to his agent—“he knows my political opinions,” as Tomkins says, “so much better than I do”—whilst he attends to his love affairs, in which he is also prompted by his rascally agent, who tells him that the Lady Evelyn returns his affection. Upon this hint Tomkins speaks and in a very funny scene he declares his passion, on his knees. The third act passes to the day of the poll, and Tomkins, who is nervous enough in addressing the electors from the window of the White Hart, plucks up courage when personal references to his mother are introduced, and boldly gives them what he would call a piece of his mind. For Tomkins is not such a paltry creature as he seems, and when he discovers that the Lady Evelyn prefers his first cousin to him, he generously brings the lovers together, and presents the young lady with the mortgage deeds as a wedding present. Then the insignificant little man, who has been the object of everybody’s scorn but his demonstrative mother’s, becomes the admiration of them all, and the newly-elected member of Parliament offers her hand to the shopkeeper’s daughter, who has had all along a forlorn hope of becoming his wife. The romantic sentiment of the piece, it will be seen, is somewhat strained, and the fun lies rather in the ludicrous contrasts of the pushing Tomkins with his surroundings than in the wit of the dialogue, which is not particularly brilliant. Next to Mr. Grossmith, Miss Nina Boucicault contributes the best piece of acting, and it is to be regretted that this vivacious actress is no better employed than in playing the auxiliary part of the younger sister of the Lady Evelyn, who is prettily represented by Miss May Palfrey. Mr. Sydney Brough is the over-bearing young lover, whose insolence cannot be so easily forgiven by the audience as it is by the young lady and the too magnanimous shop-walker. Mr. Sydney Warden plays the Earl of Doverdale, who expresses himself in the stilted style which noblemen commonly use only in books and plays, and talks of “retiring to rest,” when an ordinary mortal would say he was going to bed. A very amusing sketch of an election agent is given by r. David James, and Miss M. A. Victor has the part of the expansive mother. At the end of the performance the authors were called, and the mystery of the identity of “Charles Marlowe” was revealed by the appearance of Miss Harriett Jay with Mr. Buchanan.

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The Pall Mall Gazette (27 February, 1896 - Issue 9649)

“THE SHOPWALKER.”

     The words “The Romance of” precede the above title on the programmes of the Vaudeville Theatre, where Mr. Weedon Grossmith produced his new and original comedy, in three acts, by Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe, last evening. There is not too much “romance” about the “new” play, except of an antediluvian order. The piece is thoroughly “conventional.” The authors have chosen a quotation from Burns as their text, which runs—

The rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man’s the gold for a’ that.

As a matter of fact, we opine that perhaps a more appropriate quotation would have been “Tittlebat Titmouse is my name.” Mr. Robert Buchanan is rather fond of seeking and finding inspiration for his “new and original comedies” in old-time novelists’ suggestions. In the present instance the source can be traced, without too deep investigation, to Mr. Samuel Warren’s admirable novel, “Ten Thousand a Year.” Mr. Robert Buchanan and his collaborateuse, Miss Harriet Jay, have doubled the hero’s fortune, and have called him Thomas Tomkins. Therein it seems to us that their claim to novelty and originality cease.
     Thomas Tomkins is a “Shopwalker,” which is a euphonism apparently for a “counter-jumper.” His “romance” is that he has fallen in love with an earl’s daughter, that by a timeworn accident he inherits a fortune peculiar to the exigencies of dramatic necessity, whereby he is enabled to buy the mortgage deeds of the impoverished earl; and on discovering the fact, which has been patent to the audience all along, that the earl’s daughter loves another and despises him, he sacrifices his romance at the shrine of stage heroism and hands over the mortgage-deeds as a wedding present to the titled girl of his choice, thereby benefiting her not a whit, but doing a distinctly good turn to the noble earl, who has done nothing whatever to deserve this slice of good fortune. There is no pretence on the part of the authors to literary brilliancy. The dialogue is to the point without any attempt at being pointed.
     The acting is admirable all round. Mr. Weedon Grossmith, as Thomas Tomkins, has evidently made a careful study of a part which requires, and obtains, both delicate and effective handling, on account of its inherent vulgarity, which might prove offensive if not treated with consummate skill. This character is one of the most artistically rendered of the many that Mr. Weedon Grossmith has as yet given us. Mr. David James has never achieved anything better than his conception and execution of Alexander McCollop. In our opinion it was the gem of an all-round excellent exhibition of histrionic skill. Mr. Sydney Brough had little, far too little, to do, but did it convincingly. Miss May Palfrey played the part of Lady Evelyn as well as she looked it, which is according the highest praise to her performance. Miss Nina Boucicault as Lady Mabel was one of the most successful features of the evening. Miss M. A. Victor has far too little to do, but did that little so admirably as to make it a matter of regret on the part of the audience that she was not far more prominently en évidence. Miss Annie Hill, and Miss M. Talbot, Messrs. Sydney Warden, F. Volpe and C. H. Fenton all did excellent service.
     “The Romance of the Shopwalker” is, to sum up, a play which would be good were it not so conventional, excellently acted, and which should attract during its London run and make an honest success in the provinces. It was enthusiastically received, and everybody, including the authors, were summoned before the curtain for the purpose of receiving the genuine congratulations of the audience.

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The Penny Illustrated Paper (29 February, 1896 - p.3)

"The Romance of the Shopwalker."

     In the novel of “Ten Thousand a Year,” fortune suddenly smiles upon one of humble origin. The authors of the new Vaudeville play (MM. Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe) have doubled that amount, and it is to the tune of £20,000 a year that Thomas Tomkins, his soul “rising and fermenting” beneath his romantic waistcoat, proudly steps into “high life.” His imagination fired by novelette-reading, he no longer deigns to notice sweet Dorothy, daughter of the owner of the Dorking Bon Marché, but aspires to the hand of Lady Evelyn, who naturally prefers her cousin, Captain Dudley. Very amusingly are the pretentious Tomkins and his plebeian mother held up to ridicule. Much fun is made of the snobbish hero’s standing for Parliament; and a good point secured by his access of generosity to Lady Evelyn, and his ultimate pairing with Dorothy. As mother and son, Miss M. A. Victor and Mr. Weedon Grossmith are fairly in their element. Mr. David James makes a hit as MacCollop, the designing Scot. Needless to add, Miss May Palfrey charms everyone as Lady Evelyn, for this fair young actress is one of the prettiest and most captivating ladies on the stage. With Miss Palfrey may be coupled the fascinating Dorothy of Miss Annie Hill and the Lady Mabel of Miss Nina Boucicault; and Mr. Frederick Volpé and Mr. Sydney Brough make their mark as the proprietor of the Bon Marché and the lucky Captain of this exceedingly droll and diverting comedy.

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The Era (29 February, 1896 - Issue 2997)

THE LONDON THEATRES.
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THE VAUDEVILLE
On Wednesday, Feb. 26th, for the First Time in London,
a Comedy, in Three Acts,
by Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe, entitled
“THE ROMANCE OF THE SHOPWALKER.”

Thomas Tomkins     ..........     Mr WEEDON GROSSMITH
The Earl of Doverdale  ......     Mr SYDNEY WARDEN
Captain Dudley        ..........     Mr SYDNEY BROUGH
Mr Samuel Hubbard    ......     Mr FREDERICK VOLPE
Alexander M^cCollop    ......     Mr DAVID JAMES
Mr Catchem             ..........     Mr C. H. FENTON
Conningsby               ..........     Mr T. HESSLEWOOD
A Shopman               ..........     Mr SKINNER
Lady Munro              ..........     Miss M. TALBOT
Lady Evelyn              ..........     Miss MAY PALFREY
Lady Mabel              ..........     Miss NINA BOUCICAULT
Dorothy Hubbard      ..........     Miss ANNIE HILL
Mrs Tomkins             ..........     Miss M. A. VICTOR

     No special erudition and experience would be needed to point out the resemblance between The Romance of the Shopwalker—which had preliminary production at the Theatre Royal, Colchester, on Monday—and previous plays. It reminds one of The Parvenu in plot, and of Samuel Warren’s novel of “Ten Thousand a-Year” in the character of its hero. After all, what do these reminiscences matter? The important fact in connection with Mr Robert Buchanan and Mr “Charles Marlowe’s” piece is that it gave us a merry two hours and a-half at the vaudeville Theatre on Wednesday, evoked a great deal of laughter, and trembled, at times, on the verge of pathos. Indeed, the chief fault lay with the audience, who were inclined to see only the ridiculous side of Thomas Tomkins’s adventures, and often laughed in the wrong place. But we must take out audiences as we find them, shallowness, prejudices, and all; and we counsel Mr Buchanan and his collaborator to humour their patrons by removing a few of the liens in which Tomkins asserts his good qualities.
     Thomas Tomkins is the shopwalker in the establishment of Mr Samuel Hubbard, haberdasher, of the “Bon Marché,” Dorking. Dorothy, Hubbard’s daughter, has a tender place in her heart for the employee, but he has fixed his affections upon beautiful Lady Evelyn Doverdale, daughter of the Earl of Doverdale. Evelyn, who is already attached to her poor cousin, Captain Dudley, comes to Hubbard’s shop, and, by pretending to faint, is conducted into Hubbard’s parlour, where she meets the Captain surreptitiously. The interview between the lovers is interrupted by the return of the Earl and his sister, Lady Munro, and Evelyn is taken home in disgrace. Alexander M^cCollop, a lawyer’s clerk, and Tomkins’s bosom friend, comes to tell him that a relative has left him a fortune of £20,000 a-year, and the act ends with the jubilation of the shopwalker and his friends.
     In the second act we find him in all the glories of overdress and evening dress in the drawing-room at Doverdale Castle. He has put up as a candidate for the county; and, out of pure good-nature and love for Lady Evelyn, has bought up the heavy mortgages upon the Doverdale estates, and intends to present them to the Earl. Egged on by the subtle M^cCollop, who wants the match between Tomkins and Lady Evelyn to come off so that he (M^cCollop) may marry Dorothy Hubbard, the ex-shopwalker proposes to the lady. M^cCollop has obtained the reluctant support of Lady Munro by telling her that Tomkins will foreclose on the mortgage immediately if he is refused. Lady Evelyn is thus made to believe that her self-sacrifice alone can save her father from beggary, and she gives her hand to Tomkins, who is enraptured.
     The scene of the last act is a room in the White Hart, Dorking. It is the day of the election, and the usual amenities are being exchanged between the supporters of the rival combatants. A slander has been put about to the effect that Tomkins, who is in reality the best of sons, is allowing his old mother a paltry stipend out of his wealth, and this calumny is cast in Tomkins’s teeth when he makes his speech to the electors. He loses his temper, shows the old lady to the mob radiant in glorious and expensive raiment, denounces them for their false and cowardly detractions, and ends by telling them that he doesn’t want to be their member. M^cCollop, pressing his advances upon Dorothy, is overheard by Lady Mabel, the younger daughter, who exposes the canny Scotchman’s trickery, and he is cast off by Tomkins, who, though he wins his election, renounces his claim on Lady Evelyn’s hand, gives her the mortgage deed, and announces his intention of retiring to the class from which he came.
     To state that the all-important part of Thomas Tomkins was sustained by Mr Weedon Grossmith is to assure out readers that an interpretation of exquisite comicality was presented by that quaint and curious comedian. There is something so admirably suitable in Mr Grossmith’s “means” to the portrayal of a character of the typical shopman or valet, that when we see him in a part of this class we are inclined to wish that he might ever “do nothing but that.” And Mr Grossmith’s analysis of such characters is not superficial. He gives us the so-called “snob” in his entirety, and, while accentuating all the comic details, does not neglect the essential characteristics. His impersonation of the vulgar, uninformed, but chivalrous shopwalker was irresistible in its drollery. The oddities of diction and manner of Tomkins were adroitly indicated, and full justice was done to the pathetic side of his position. Mr Sydney Warden made an aristocratic Earl of Doverdale, and Mr Sydney Brough’s Captain Dudley was unimpeachable in its frank, gentlemanly ease. Mr Frederick Volpe was quite realistic as the Dorking haberdasher; and Mr David James gave a smooth, polished, and effective performance as Alexander M^cCollop. The small part of Mr Catchem was carefully played by Mr C. H. Fenton, and the butler, Coningsby, had a suitable representative in Mr T. Hesslewood. Miss M. Talbot was pleasant and ladylike as Lady Munro. Miss May Palfrey did all that could well be done with the trite rôle of Lady Evelyn, and Miss Nina Boucicault gave a charmingly crisp, dainty, and vivid performance of the part of Lady Mabel. Miss Annie Hill was appropriately simple and quiet as Dorothy, and Miss M. A. Victor convulsed the audience completely by her comical appearance and admirable acting as Mrs Tomkins. The Romance of the Shopwalker was received with loud laughter and hearty applause. It was preceded by Mr H. M. Pauli’s comedietta, in one act, entitled Merrifield’s Ghost, the only change in the cast from that of its production at this theatre on Nov. 13th last being in the assumption by Mr E, Ferris of the rôle of Will Gordon, formerly sustained by Mr Wilfred Draycott. Mr Ferris gave a spirited embodiment of the architect’s son, and Mr Sydney Warden, though his appearance was not sufficiently old, acted well as the Ghost.

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From Dramatic Opinions and Essays - Volume One by George Bernard Shaw (New York: Brentano’s, 1906 - p. 354-356)

The Romance of the Shopwalker: a new and original comedy. By Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe. Vaudeville Theatre, 26 February, 1896.

     I was so sternly reproved for my frivolity in rather liking “The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown,” that I hardly dare to confess that I got on very well also with “The Shopwalker.” I am as well aware as anybody that these Buchanan-Marlowe plays (Marlowe is a lady, by the way) are conventional in the sense that the sympathy they appeal to flows in channels deeply worn by use, and that the romance of them is taken unaffectedly from the Alnaschar dreams of the quite ordinary man. But allow me to point out that this sort of conventionality, obvious and simple as it seems, is not a thing that can be attained without a measure of genius. Most of the plays produced in the course of the year are attempts to do just this apparently simple thing; and most of them fail, not because they aim at realizing the vulgar dream, giving expression to the vulgar feeling, and finding words for the vulgar thought, but because, in spite of their aiming, they miss the mark. It seems so like missing a haystack at ten yards that many critics, unable to believe in such a blunder, write as if the marksman had accomplished his feat, but had bored the spectators by its commonness. They are mistaken: what we are so tired of is the clumsy, stale, stupid, styleless, mannerless, hackneyed devices which we know by experience to be the sure preliminaries to the bungler’s failure. Now Mr. Buchanan does not miss his mark. It is true that he is so colossally lazy, so scandalously and impenitently perfunctory, that it is often astonishing how he gets even on the corner of the target; but he does get there because, having his measure of genius, it is easier to him to hit somewhere than to miss altogether. There is plenty of scamped stuff in “The Shopwalker”: for example, the part of Captain Dudley is nothing short of an insult to the actor, Mr. Sydney Brough; and a good half of the dialogue could be turned out by a man of Mr. Buchanan’s literary power at the rate of three or four thousand words a day. Mr. Pinero or Mr. Jones would shoot themselves rather than throw such copious, careless, unsifted workmanship to the public. But the story is sympathetically imagined; and nearly all the persons of the drama are human. One forgives even Captain Dudley and Lady Evelyn as one forgives the pictures of lovers on a valentine. Mr. Buchanan does not count on your being a snob, and assume that you are ready to sneer at the promoted shopwalker and his old mother: he makes you laugh heartily at them, but not with that hateful, malicious laughter that dishonors and degrades yourself. Consequently there is, for once, some sense in calling a popular play wholesome. All I have to say against “The Shopwalker” is that there is hardly any point on which it might not have been a better play if more trouble had been taken with it; and that a little practical experience of the dramatic side of electioneering would have enabled the authors greatly to condense and intensify the scene in the last act, where the shopwalker, as Parliamentary candidate, produces his mother. It is a mistake, both from the electioneering and poetic point of view, to make Tomkins merely splenetic at this point: he should appeal to the crowd as men, not denounce them as curs. However, Buchanan would not be Buchanan without at least one incontinence of this kind in the course of a play.
     The acting is excellent, Mr. Grossmith, with all his qualities in easy action, being capitally supported by Miss Victor, Miss Nina Boucicault, and Mr. David James. Miss Palfrey improves, though not quite as fast as she might if she gave her mind to it. Miss Annie Hill is satisfactory as Dorothy Hubbard, but has not much to do. The other parts are mere routine.

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Reynolds’s Newspaper (1 March, 1896 - Issue 2377)

“THE SHOPWALKER” AT THE
VAUDEVILLE.

     Mr. Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriett Jay (“Charles Marlowe”) are the co-authors in “The Romance of the Shopwalker,” produced at the Vaudeville on Wednesday evening. The story is very simple, and on an old theme. Thomas Tomkins (Mr. Weedon Grossmith), the shopwalker, has a soul above the counter. He pines for high life and marriage with a nobly-born lady. Luck, in the way of an immense fortune, enables him to taste in reality some of the sweets of his dream. He makes love to Lady Evelyn (Miss May Palfrey), the daughter of an impecunious Earl of Doverdale (Mr. Sydney Warden). By having a mortgage on the estates of the Earl he is able to advance his wooing largely by deputy in the form of an agent, who undertakes the “running” of him in his new sphere of life. Lady Evelyn is beloved of Captain Dudley (Mr. Sydney Brough), whose captaincy is his fortune. She reciprocates the affection. But the stern necessity of her having a wealthy husband brushes away all this sentimental longing, until Mr. Thomas Tomkins himself perceives that he is no proper mate for the fair lady, relieves her, and presents her to the Captain, together with the mortgage on her father’s property.
     Among his other ambitions Tomkins seeks to become a member of Parliament. Like other upstarts, his agent coaches him in politics, and he comes in for a good deal of banter at the hands of the election crowds. They accuse him of his lowly origin and of neglecting his mother, the last being a gross slander, contradicted by the arrival of the old lady herself in all the glory of silk and satin. A true bit of drama is introduced in this scene, where Tomkins, throwing his aspirations to the winds, confesses his humble lineage, and announces that he is not ashamed of having been a “shopwalker.”
     Mr. Weedon Grossmith performs with a comical sort of pathos that is very enticing; and Miss Nina Boucicault as Lady Mabel, sister of Lady Evelyn, shows distinct signs of the highest promise. The others in the bill are Misses Talbot, Annie Hill, and M. A. Victor, and Messrs. David James, F. Volpe, Fenton, Hesslewood, Skinner. Notwithstanding the weakness of the dialogue, the “Romance of a Shopwalker” has numerous good points which ought to bring it wide popularity.

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Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (1 March, 1896 - Issue 2780)

VAUDEVILLE THEATRE.

     The Romance of a Shopwalker is a very amusing homely comedy, containing a capital character for Mr. Weedon Grossmith. The piece is constructed on the simple and straightforward plan pursued by the late H. J. Byron, and the principals in the action are on the whole well drawn. It sets forth the adventures of Thomas Tomkins, a youthful shopwalker in a drapery establishment, who with no special advantages either of appearances or of education fancies himself in love with the Lady Evelyn. Unexpectedly coming into a large fortune he presses his suit and also aspires to become a member of Parliament, but he soon perceives that those who are most ready to prey upon his good nature are the quickest to ridicule his pretensions to move in aristocratic circles. He submits to ill-disguised contempt until reference is made to his humble mother, whereupon in manly fashion he turns upon his persecutors and heaps coals of fire upon their heads by generous actions preparatory to settling down with his late employer’s daughter, who has long secretly loved him. The assertiveness, alternating with servility, of Tomkins, affords Mr. Weedon Grossmith numerous opportunities of displaying the peculiar vein of humour in which he has scarcely a rival, and the illustration of the youth’s indignation when his eyes are opened to the insincerity of his new friends is not lacking in dramatic force. Miss M. A. Victor (as the kindly, old-fashioned mother), Miss May Palfrey, and Mr. Sydney Brough (as Lady Evelyn and her lover), Mr. David James (as an election agent), Miss Nina Boucicault, and Mr. Sydney Warden give excellent support. When the authors were on Wednesday loudly summoned Mr. Robert Buchanan appeared with Miss Harriett Jay.

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Glasgow Herald (3 March, 1896 - Issue 54)

DRESS AND FASHION.

                           MISS MAY PALFREY, who shares with her husband, Mr Weedon Grossmith, the principal honours in “The Romance of a Shopwalker,” the new play by Mr Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe (Miss Harriet Jay) wears (writes a lady correspondent) some pretty dresses in her rôle of the Shop-walker’s aristocratic fiancée. In the first act Lady Evelyn, who enters the room behind the draper’s counter on pretext of a fainting fit, wears a dainty white poplin gown with full skirt, the bodice draped with a coffee-tinted chiffon, and lace fichu drawn through the waistbelt. The picture hat has clusters of rich crimson roses. Miss Nina Boucicault, who plays delightfully as the hoydenish young sister of Lady Evelyn, wears a very girlish frock of pink silk made in smock fashion, with Mother Hubbard sleeves and a large frilled fichu of white chiffon tied at the back and falling in long ends. The wide-brimmed hat of pink drawn tulle is trimmed with roses. The second act passes in a prettily-staged drawing-room, with old family portraits and softly-shaded lamps. Lady Evelyn’s evening dress of white satin has a tinge of pink from the pink silk lining. The square-cut corsage is trimmed with a thick ruche of rose-pink chiffon, and a scarf of the same material is wound round the waist and tied at the left side. The bishop sleeves are also of pink chiffon and on each shoulder is a large bow of white satin lined with pink. In the same scene Miss Boucicault wears a dress that would be very suitable for a young girl’s party frock. It is in soft white silk and is hung from a yoke of silver sequin passementerie. The hem of the skirt is softened with a lace frill. Bands of silver sequin embroidery hang loosely from the shoulders down the front of the dress. A white ribbon tied in the flowing hair is in harmony with the simple dress. In the last scene—a room in the White Hart Inn, from the window of which the Shop-walker candidate for Parliamentary honours addresses his electors—Miss Palfrey wears a pelisse of electric blue cloth with yoke of black passementerie and large bishop sleeves, the bodice of the pelisse crossing to one side in soft folds. Miss Boucicault’s tailor-made dress of forest green cloth has the newest jacket—the short loose sacque with double-breasted front. It has large lapels and pointed gauntlet cuffs of white cloth, sewn with sequins. Miss Victor, who plays admirably as the simple old countrywoman, the mother of the Shop-walker, dresses the part to perfection in Paisley plaids of a bygone era, dresses of fearful and wonderful patterns, and coal-scuttle bonnets laden with feathers and flowers, her appearance in the election scene being such as to fully warrant the attention that she is supposed to have attracted from the electioneering mob.

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From The Theatrical ‘World’ of 1896 by William Archer (London: Walter Scott, Ltd., 1897 - p.65-67)

“THE ROMANCE OF THE SHOPWALKER.”
                                                                                                                      4th March.

     An agreeable, unpretending piece of work is The Romance of the Shopwalker, by Mr. Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe” (Miss Harriet Jay), at the Vaudeville. The story has been told a hundred times; the ready-made characters appeal direct to the ready-made sympathies of the average audience; and yet the “romance” (for it really deserves its title) is so genial and humane that I was thoroughly amused and, in the third act, even moved by it. There is a touch of delightful irony in the interruption of one of the Shopwalker’s rhapsodies about “all men being equal in the sight of Heaven,” by the curt demand, “Sign, please!” The whole first act, indeed, is bright, novel, and entertaining. The second is more conventional, and even becomes painful at times; but the third is really dramatic, the contrast between Tomkins’s two harangues to the crowd being excellently imagined. Mr. Bernard Shaw, I observe, seems to bracket this play with its predecessor from the same pens, and to feel, somehow or other, that the merits of The Shopwalker justify his inexplicable tenderness towards Miss Brown. Let him contrast what the authors have done for Mr. Weedon Grossmith with what they did for Mr. Fred Kerr, and he will surely realise the difference between the two pieces. To Mr. Grossmith the authors have given an opportunity for a genuine character-creation, a performance which shows his admirable talent in its most favourable light. Of Mr. Kerr—also an excellent comedian—they made a pitiable laughing-stock, obscuring his talent, and subjecting him to senseless indignities such as account, in great measure, for the instinctive disesteem in which the world has always held the actor’s calling. For my part, I shall long retain a kindly remembrance of Mr. Grossmith’s Thomas Tomkins; when I think of “Miss Brown,” I blush for my species. Mr. David James was clever as Tomkins’s Mephistopheles, and his Scotch was above reproach except for a single superfluous letter. Birnam Wood shall come to Dunsinane ere an authentic Scot shall be heard to say “stigmar upon.” Miss M. A. Victor gave a highly-coloured portrait of the Shopwalker’s mother, Miss May Palfrey was pleasant as the haughty Lady Evelyn, and Miss Nina Boucicault made a real character of the vivacious Lady Mabel.

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The New York Times (8 March, 1896)

     “The Romance of a Shop-walker,” by Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe, in which Weedon Grossmith is acting at the London Vaudeville Theatre, resembles, in plot and incidents, the comic piece Emma Sheridan Frye wrote for Richard Mansfield on the basis of Samuel Warren’s “Ten Thousand a Year.” The young cockney shopman, in love with his employer’s daughter, is suddenly raised to affluence, and betrothed to a peer’s daughter, whom he afterward releases to return to his former sweetheart; the comic electioneering scene, and the treacherous friend who tries to use the hero’s wealth for his own ends, are all in it. Of course, “The Romance of a Shop-walker” is not a dramatization of Warren’s satirical tale, but neither was Mrs. Frye’s play, properly speaking.

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Glasgow Herald (9 June, 1896)

THE THEATRES.
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ROYALTY—“THE SHOPWALKER.”

     For the season of the year the attendance at the Royalty Theatre last night reached almost record dimensions. The interest was occasioned by the production of “The Shopwalker,” a comedy which comes to us with something of a London reputation. The performance did not belie the most favourable anticipations. Written around a theme hackneyed almost to attenuation, and constructed of the most flimsy material, the comedy is, nevertheless, vastly entertaining. This is due to the cleverness of the acting rather than the skill of the authors. Indeed, the dialogue at more than one point runs pretty well to seed, and the inevitable issue of the romance can be discerned practically from the opening. The story may be indicated in little more than a sentence. It is the case of a young man in the humble position of a draper’s assistant unexpectedly inheriting great wealth, and carrying his plebeian manners and shopwalking obsequiousness with him into his new social surroundings. He seeks to win the affection of a lady of title, but only succeeds in intensifying her dislike for him. In good old-fashioned style her father suddenly finds himself bordering upon bankruptcy, and in order to save the family fortunes the lady reluctantly gives her hand where her heart can never be—in other words, to the dapper little shopwalker, whose name, by the way, is Tompkins. Unlike the usual stage parvenu, the present specimen is not wholly lacking in manly spirit and gentlemanly instinct, and when he learns that the lady whom he had sought to win on his merits, as it were, is really offering herself on the altar of filial duty he magnanimously renounces his claim and transfers his affections to the daughter of his former employer. A good deal of the trouble in the story is brought about by the self-interested scheming of a very inferior limb of the law. Why this individual should be represented as a Scotchman is hard to understand. The authors are Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe. It would be interesting to know “which of them hath done this.” Anyhow, the character is atrociously incongruous, and is altogether too suggestive of a certain touch of “local colour,” sometimes appropriately enough introduced into pantomime. The piece, however, as has been said, is thoroughly enjoyable—thanks mainly to the acting. Mr Weedon Grossmith really makes the comedy by his clever sketch in the title character. He plays it in admirable spirit, taking out of it the very utmost that it is capable of yielding, and doing it in a singularly easy and captivating way. He is ably assisted. Miss May Palfrey plays an important part very effectively, although with evident reserve. Miss Victor gives us a strongly-coloured picture of the shopwalker’s mother, but, like all her work, it is the production of an artist. Other parts are also well played by Misses Hilda Thorpe, Milly Thorne, and Annie Hill; Messrs Charles Goodhart, R. Melton, C. H. Fenton, and Blake Adams. The engagement is limited to the present week.

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The Newcastle Weekly Courant (20 June, 1896 - Issue 11553)

     “The Romance of the Shopwalker,” which Mr Weedon Grossmith has produced at the Royal this week, though unconvincing, possesses many inherent qualities essential to the success of dramatic work. Nothing could be more charming than the scene in which Tomkins relinquishes Lady Evelyn to Captain Dudley. But upon the other hand it is surely a clumsy contrivance to make the daughter of an earl meet her lover clandestinely in the back premises of a cheap linen draper’s shop, or to announce the result of a Parliamentary election ten minutes after the close of the poll. Of course we are prepared to hear that the exigencies of the stage demand these concessions to conventionality. Nothing of the kind. The works of our greatest playwrights prove that the exigencies of the stage make no such demand, and that blemishes of this description are only a sign of weakness, if not of incompetency. Robert Buchanan has in his time produced good literary work and his collaborator, Miss Harriet Jay, who modestly conceals her identity under the nom de plume of “Charles Marlowe,” is a capable actress, but they are not likely to enhance their reputation with “The Romance of the Shopwalker.” Less experienced actors replace Messrs Sydney Warden, Sidney Brough, F. Volpe, and others, who appeared in the original cast. Miss May Palfrey is sweet and beautiful as the daughter of an impoverished peer, though unequal to the stronger passages in a somewhat exacting part. As the shopwalker’s mother Miss M. A. Victor excites much laughter. That she has transformed a character brimful of pathos into a comic ld woman is inexplicable. Mr Blake Adams lends valuable aid as a lawyer’s clerk. Mr Weedon Grossmith in the title role acts with that consummate skill which has placed him in the forefront of leading actors. It was in 1888 that we first saw Mr Grossmith. He was then playing “Jacques Stroppe” to Henry Irving’s “Robert Macaire” at the Lyceum; this old drama having been “put up” as an after-piece to “The Amber Heart,” in which Miss Ellen Terry and Mr George Alexander proved so successful. The clever brother of Mr George Grossmith had just forsaken the painter’s art for that of the stage, and Henry Irving’s sound judgment was proved in his selection of a comparatively unknown man to play such an important role. Since then Mr Weedon Grossmith has fulfilled important engagements at the Court, Terry’s, Avenue, Shaftesbury, and other leading theatres. Some time ago he became lessee of the Vaudeville, and there produced the successful farcical play, “The New Boy.” His part in “The Romance of the Shopwalker” is one calculated to bring his peculiar powers into great prominence. He stands unequalled as an exponent of that unpleasant creature, a London snob. “Thomas Tomkins” is a loveable little man, and the regard he entertains for his vulgar old mother is almost pathetic in its intensity. This is Mr Grossmith’s first visit to Newcastle, and it is to be regretted that better support has not rewarded his efforts. The intense heat had prevented many from visiting the theatre, but as a matter of fact it is far cooler in the Grey Street house than in the streets, there being a perfect system of ventilation, filling the building with a fresh supply of pure air every fifteen minutes.

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The Guardian (30 June, 1896 - p.9)

PRINCE’S THEATRE.

THE ROMANCE OF THE SHOPWALKER.

     This is a “domestic” comedy by Mr. Robert Buchanan and Mr. Charles Marlowe, and it was presented last night, for the first time in Manchester, by Mr. Weedon Grossmith’s company. It is bright and amusing, and had an instant success with the audience. The point of the play is to give £20,000 a year to a draper’s assistant with a salary of 15s. a week and everything else to correspond, and put him in Doverdale Castle to make love to an earl’s daughter. This is the character Mr. Grossmith takes, and it is broad work which he does extremely well and never overdoes. He has trouble, of course, with his aspirates, and slaps the stately old earl on the back; but it is not in such surface things that the merit and the humour of the performance consist. Mr. Tompkins has about him what may be called secondary symptoms of the shop, and these are as a rule extremely amusing—as, for instance, when he is proposing to the Lady Evelyn he takes up her fan and unconsciously measures the ribbon in yard lengths. The story is very well told, and we leave the shopwalker at the end of it with rather a kindly feelings, in spite of his social shortcomings. Mr. Blake Adams as M^cCollop, a lawyer’s clerk, makes some good points, if some of them are at the expense of M^cCollop’s country. The old earl, whose poverty leads him for a time to think of Tompkins as a son-in-law, is played with a convincing enough air by Mr. Charles Goodhart, and the women of the family are also presented in a satisfactory way, though Miss Victor as the mother of the shopwalker makes perhaps a stronger impression on the audience. A pleasant little one-act play, “In Nelson’s Days,” precedes the comedy.

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The Star (Christchurch, New Zealand) (22 November, 1898 -p.1)

LADIES’ GOSSIP.
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[“CANTERBURY TIMES.”]

.....

     The woman playwriter is a new development, and it would be hard to say whether her success has been the more surprising to herself or to man. It used to be said that two things were totally beyond a woman. One was to hold her tongue, the other was to write a play. The latter she has done, and there are many, the writer among the number, who are sanguine enough to believe that she is learning “to hold her tongue” also. Chief among successful lady dramatists is an American lady, Miss Morton, who has written about a dozen plays, one of which won the £1000 prize offered not long ago by the “New York Herald.” Most of the women whose plays have found favour with the British public are, curiously enough, of American birth. Thus Mrs Craigie, whose comedy “The Ambassador,” is now running in London, is a native of Boston. Mrs Ryley, the author of “Jedbury Junior,” was a New York operatic singer. Englishwomen, however, have won laurels in this profession also, and chief among them are Mrs Musgrave, whose “Our Flat” had a longer run than the work of any other woman, and Miss Clo Graves, who is the only woman dramatist to have had two pieces running on the London stage at the same time. These were “The Match Maker” and “A Mother of Three,” and it was only by sheer perseverance that she induced managers to consider them at all. Even members of the aristocracy have gone in for writing plays, and the Ladies Colin Campbell and Violet Greville have done so with considerable success. It is said that the notion of a lady author is so new that it is not readily grasped by theatre-goers, and an amusing occurrence took place on one occasion in consequence. It was the first night of the “Romance of the Shopwalker,” which was written by Miss Harriet Jay, sister-in-law of Robert Buchanan. At the usual call for the author, a beautiful lady in evening dress appeared before the footlights, and acknowledged the thundering applause that greeted her. The lady was “Charles Marlowe”—her nom-de-plume which was set on the programme. But the cry for the author still went up, and Miss Jay presented herself again. Whereupon some of the galleryites grew obstreperous, and shrieked out: “Never mind her; let’s have Charlie!” The lady author once more came before the curtain, and the galleryites, seeing their mistake, gave one terrific cheer, and subsided, fully satisfied with “Charlie’s” work.

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From From Studio To Stage: Reminiscences of Weedon Grossmith Written by Himself (London: John Lane, 1913 - p. 223-224)

     I have read as many as two hundred farces or comedies in a year and not found one winner amongst them. At the termination of the run of “Poor Mr. Potton,” while the late Robert Buchanan was writing me a comedy called “The Romance of a Shopwalker,” and having no play to put on as a stop-gap, I had to close the theatre for several weeks, and besides the expense of the rent of the theatre, and several salaries to pay, I had the additional rent of a house in South Street, Park Lane, as well as my old house at Canonbury.
     The cast of “The Romance of a Shopwalker” included, among others, my wife (May Palfrey,) the late Miss M. A. Victor, Nina Boucicault, the late Sidney Brough, and David James, Jr., and Miss Annie Hill.
     The play made no money, so after a couple of months I “put up the shutters” and again said, “Next, please.”

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